tag:
Malayala Manorama Indian Newspaper of Malayalam Language from eight places in Kerela
Thursday,10 July 2008 18:14 hrs IST
Gen Y turns to religion
-
New Delhi: Three out of four Indians pray at least once a day, says a study across 21 nations by a German research agency, adding young adults are more religious than is being assumed.
Surveying 21,000 people in 21 nations, the study released Thursday by the German Bertelsmann Foundation found that around 85 percent are religious and 14 percent are deeply so. Only 13 percent aren't religious.
Martin Rieger, project leader of the Bertelsmann Foundation's Religion Monitor said in a press statement: "The assumption that religious belief is dwindling continuously from generation to generation is clearly refuted by our worldwide surveys - even in many industrialised nations."
The study found that 90 percent of young adults in countries like Nigeria and Guatemala pray at least once a day, while three out of four do the same in India, Morocco and Turkey.
It also found that there are many more religious people in the US than in most other western countries. Fiftyseven percent of young Americans pray daily, the study notes.
However, the study says that there are marked differences in the trend between individual countries and denominations. Young adults in Islamic states are deeply religious whereas young Christians in Europe are not.
In contrast to the trend in India, Morocco and Turkey, the study found that just nine percent of young adults pray daily in France, in Russia the figure is eight percent while in Austria the number is seven percent.
Interestingly, the survey also found that in some countries like Britain, the younger population is turning to religion more frequently than the older generation. Also the younger Israeli population is more religious than their parents.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Priestly garments give Jews hope of new temple at Jerusalem
Indian Express - Indian Newspapers in English Language from five editions
Priestly garments give Jews hope of new temple at Jerusalem
Associated Press
Posted online: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 at 2229 hrs Print Email
JERUSALEM, July 7: In a stuffy basement off an Old City alleyway in Jerusalem, tailors using ancient texts as a blueprint have begun making a curious line of clothing that they hope will be worn by priests in a reconstructed Jewish Temple—the spiritual centre of Judaism destroyed by Roman legions two millennia ago.
The project, run by a Jerusalem group called the Temple Institute, is part of an ideology that advocates making practical preparations for the rebuilding of the ancient Temple on a disputed rectangle in Jerusalem sacred to both Jews and Muslims.
Jews call the site the Temple Mount and venerate it as their holiest place. The Temple itself was destroyed by Roman legions two millennia ago. For the past 1,300 years, the site has been home to Islam’s third-holiest shrine, the Noble Sanctuary, including the golden Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
These conflicting claims lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and past efforts to upset the status quo have erupted into violence.
The Temple Institute has made priestly garments in the past for display in the small museum it runs in the Jewish Quarter, but those were hand-sewn and cost upward of $10,000 each. The institute recently received rabbinic permission to begin using sewing machines for the first time, bringing the cost down and allowing them to produce dozens or hundreds of garments, depending on how many orders come in.
If you are a descendant of the Jewish priestly class, a full outfit, including an embroidered belt 32 biblical cubits (48 feet, 15 meters) long, can be yours for about $800. “Before, the clothes we made were to go on display. Now we’re engaged in the practical fulfillment of the divine commandment,” said Yehuda Glick, the Temple Institute’s director, at a ceremony marking the workshop’s opening last week.
The thread, six-ply flax, was purchased in India, and the diamond-patterned fabric was woven in Israel. The blue dye, which the Bible calls “tchelet,” is made from the secretions of a snail found in the Mediterranean Sea, and the red colour comes from an aphid found on local trees.
The priests, made up of descendants of the Biblical figure Aaron, were an elite group entrusted with the Temple and its rituals, such as sacrificing animals and making other offerings to God. The memory of belonging to that class has been preserved by Jews through the centuries. Their most common family name is “Cohen,” meaning priest.
The Temple Institute and similarly minded believers think those modern priests will soon have to resume the rituals of their ancestors in a rebuilt Temple, and that by preparing their garments they are bringing that day closer.
However, Adnan Husseini, formerly the top Muslim official at the site and now an adviser on Jerusalem affairs to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called the work of such groups a “provocation”. “If they talk about building the third Temple, what does it mean? It means they will destroy the Islamic mosques,” Husseini said.
Priestly garments give Jews hope of new temple at Jerusalem
Associated Press
Posted online: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 at 2229 hrs Print Email
JERUSALEM, July 7: In a stuffy basement off an Old City alleyway in Jerusalem, tailors using ancient texts as a blueprint have begun making a curious line of clothing that they hope will be worn by priests in a reconstructed Jewish Temple—the spiritual centre of Judaism destroyed by Roman legions two millennia ago.
The project, run by a Jerusalem group called the Temple Institute, is part of an ideology that advocates making practical preparations for the rebuilding of the ancient Temple on a disputed rectangle in Jerusalem sacred to both Jews and Muslims.
Jews call the site the Temple Mount and venerate it as their holiest place. The Temple itself was destroyed by Roman legions two millennia ago. For the past 1,300 years, the site has been home to Islam’s third-holiest shrine, the Noble Sanctuary, including the golden Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
These conflicting claims lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and past efforts to upset the status quo have erupted into violence.
The Temple Institute has made priestly garments in the past for display in the small museum it runs in the Jewish Quarter, but those were hand-sewn and cost upward of $10,000 each. The institute recently received rabbinic permission to begin using sewing machines for the first time, bringing the cost down and allowing them to produce dozens or hundreds of garments, depending on how many orders come in.
If you are a descendant of the Jewish priestly class, a full outfit, including an embroidered belt 32 biblical cubits (48 feet, 15 meters) long, can be yours for about $800. “Before, the clothes we made were to go on display. Now we’re engaged in the practical fulfillment of the divine commandment,” said Yehuda Glick, the Temple Institute’s director, at a ceremony marking the workshop’s opening last week.
The thread, six-ply flax, was purchased in India, and the diamond-patterned fabric was woven in Israel. The blue dye, which the Bible calls “tchelet,” is made from the secretions of a snail found in the Mediterranean Sea, and the red colour comes from an aphid found on local trees.
The priests, made up of descendants of the Biblical figure Aaron, were an elite group entrusted with the Temple and its rituals, such as sacrificing animals and making other offerings to God. The memory of belonging to that class has been preserved by Jews through the centuries. Their most common family name is “Cohen,” meaning priest.
The Temple Institute and similarly minded believers think those modern priests will soon have to resume the rituals of their ancestors in a rebuilt Temple, and that by preparing their garments they are bringing that day closer.
However, Adnan Husseini, formerly the top Muslim official at the site and now an adviser on Jerusalem affairs to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called the work of such groups a “provocation”. “If they talk about building the third Temple, what does it mean? It means they will destroy the Islamic mosques,” Husseini said.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Solar System Is Dented, Not Round: need to change the solar system models
Space Probes Show Solar System Dented, Not Round
Astronomers say they'll have to change their solar system models
By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON July 2, 2008 (AP)
The Associated Press
When viewed from the rest of the galaxy, the edge of our solar system appears slightly dented as if a giant hand is pushing one edge of it inward, far-traveling NASA probes reveal.
Information from Earth's first space probes to hit the thick edge of the solar system — called the heliosheath where the solar wind slows abruptly — paint a picture that is not the simple circle that astronomers long thought, according to several studies published Thursday in the journal Nature. Surprised astronomers said they will have to change their models for what the solar system looks like.
In 1977, NASA launched two space probes on missions beyond the solar system. Voyager 1 went north and Voyager 2 went south. What startled astronomers is that when the two of them hit the heliosheath they did so at different distances from the sun.
Voyager 2 hit the southern edge of the solar system nearly 1 billion miles closer to the sun than Voyager 1 did to the north. Voyager 2 hit the edge at 7.8 billion miles from the sun.
"We used to assume that it's all symmetric and simple," said Leonard Burlaga, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "It's literally like a hand pushing."
That push is from the magnetic field that lies between star systems in the Milky Way. The magnetic field hits the solar system at a different angle on the south than on the north, probably because of interstellar turbulence from star explosions, said Voyager project scientist Ed Stone.
Both spacecraft still have several more years before they completely exit the solar system and continue deeper into the space between stars, said Stone, former director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.
———
Astronomers say they'll have to change their solar system models
By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON July 2, 2008 (AP)
The Associated Press
When viewed from the rest of the galaxy, the edge of our solar system appears slightly dented as if a giant hand is pushing one edge of it inward, far-traveling NASA probes reveal.
Information from Earth's first space probes to hit the thick edge of the solar system — called the heliosheath where the solar wind slows abruptly — paint a picture that is not the simple circle that astronomers long thought, according to several studies published Thursday in the journal Nature. Surprised astronomers said they will have to change their models for what the solar system looks like.
In 1977, NASA launched two space probes on missions beyond the solar system. Voyager 1 went north and Voyager 2 went south. What startled astronomers is that when the two of them hit the heliosheath they did so at different distances from the sun.
Voyager 2 hit the southern edge of the solar system nearly 1 billion miles closer to the sun than Voyager 1 did to the north. Voyager 2 hit the edge at 7.8 billion miles from the sun.
"We used to assume that it's all symmetric and simple," said Leonard Burlaga, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "It's literally like a hand pushing."
That push is from the magnetic field that lies between star systems in the Milky Way. The magnetic field hits the solar system at a different angle on the south than on the north, probably because of interstellar turbulence from star explosions, said Voyager project scientist Ed Stone.
Both spacecraft still have several more years before they completely exit the solar system and continue deeper into the space between stars, said Stone, former director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.
———
Diamonds hint at 'earliest life':BBC
Diamonds hint at 'earliest life'
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
Zircon with diamond inclusion (Martina Menneken)
Some zircon crystals have been dated to 4.4bn years ago
Tiny slivers of diamond forged on an infant Earth may contain the earliest traces of life, a study has shown.
Analysis of the crystals showed they contain a form of carbon often associated with plants and bacteria.
The rare gems were found inside zircon crystals, formed a few hundred million years after the Earth came into being.
Writing in the journal Nature, the researchers caution that their results are not definitive proof of early life but do "not exclude" the possibility.
"We're all a little sceptical," said Dr Martin Whitehouse of the Swedish Museum of Natural History and one of the authors of the paper.
If the carbon was derived from primitive organisms, it would push back the date for life appearing on Earth by around 500 million years, to beyond 4.25 billion years ago. The Earth itself is just 4.6 billion years old.
"When you look at the carbon isotopes, they could be interpreted as biogenic because we know that biologic processes do generate light carbon isotopes. But of course there are other processes that can do that," Dr Whitehouse told BBC News.
"The most common way to form light carbon on the modern Earth is photosynthesis
Alexander Nemchin
Other possibilities include chemical reactions involving carbon oxides or even the material being delivered from space by meteorites.
However, some observers have raised the possibility that the diamonds may be contamination, introduced during polishing of the zircons.
"If you look at the photos that they present, you always see these diamonds sat in cracks and fissures and cavities," Professor Minik Rosing of the University of Copenhagen told BBC News.
If they were original features, he said, you would expect at least some to be embedded within the structure of the crystals.
"There is always fear that they might actually not be primary."
However, Dr Rosing explained, the possibility that the signatures were from early Life was "tantalising".
Time capsules
The tiny zircon crystals - just 0.3mm across - were found in the Jack Hills of Western Australia. They are the tough remnants of ancient rocks that have long since disappeared.
Map of Jack hills (BBC)
"We don't have the rocks. These zircons are just little fragments of something that was broken up, weathered and redeposited as sediments," explained Dr Whitehouse.
Radioactive dating has suggested that some of the crystals formed as far back as 4.4 billion years ago.
Scientists describe this phase in Earth history as the Hadean, and it has long been thought that it would be impossible for life to begin at this time because of the inhospitable conditions on the young planet.
But the Jack Hills zircons have begun to cast doubt on this theory.
Earlier work raised the intriguing possibility that the infant Earth would have been cooler and wetter than previously thought as the crystals show evidence of growing out of a low-temperature magma that had been in contact with water.
The new analysis of the diamond and graphite inclusions in the crystals could lend further weight to this theory.
"I think there is an interesting possibility here," said Dr Whitehouse.
Deep understanding
The scientists analysed 22 graphite and diamond inclusions in 18 zircon crystals.
The results showed that the capsules had unusual levels of a light form, or isotope, of carbon, known as carbon 12.
"The most common way to form light carbon on the modern Earth is photosynthesis," explained Dr Alexander Nemchin of the Curtin University of Technology, Australia, and another author of the paper.
During this process organisms preferentially extract light carbon, leaving heavier forms in the atmosphere.
Rock of the Isua Belt
The Isua Belt may contain chemical traces of ancient life
Oldest evidence of photosynthesis
Diamond record of ancient Earth
"When they die, they preserve that signature," he said.
The results of the team's experiments show that the carbon inclusions have a range of isotopes, which suggested, they said, that the carbon reservoir was "heterogeneous".
This would then have had to be buried deep inside the Earth to generate the extreme pressures required to turn it into diamond.
"If this stuff was life - which then would have presumably formed on the surface - you do then need a process to take it down to something like 150km or 200km," said Dr Whitehouse.
On the modern Earth, crust is recycled at depth in so-called subduction zones, such as those found along the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Here, cool, dense oceanic crust plunges under the buoyant and long-lived continental crust.
Previous work on the diamonds supports the notion that similar processes were occurring on the Hadean Earth.
But not all scientists agree; instead they suggest that the early crust was relatively stable. Either way, Dr Whitehouse does not believe that this rules out a biogenic origin for the carbon.
"All this tells you is that there could have been a process that put things down to 200km," he said. "There may have been other things happening that we don't know about."
Open questions
However, the team readily admit that the conclusion is not definitive.
Currently, what is thought to be the oldest signature of life by some - dated at around 3.7bn years old - was discovered by Professor Rosing in an area of intensely deformed rocks in West Greenland known as the Isua Belt.
That to me is completely the opposite of a biological signature
Minik Rosing
Here, chemical traces again suggest the presence of photosynthetic life forms. But crucially the signature is seen in a complete sequence of rocks rather than isolated crystals.
This gives geologists clues about the environment in which the rocks were laid down and whether or not they could feasibly have contained life.
"The problem with the Jack Hills is that we don't have the rock," admits Dr Whitehouse "The carbon isotopes alone are not a distinct biosignature."
As a result they have suggested other possibilities for the origin of the carbon including inorganic chemical reactions, similar to those that take place in the catalytic converter of a car.
Professor Rosing believes that this is the mostly likely explanation. He points to the range of carbon values that were found in the inclusions.
"That to me is completely the opposite of a biological signature," he said. "That's the signature of some chemistry - a fractionation process or something."
Photosynthesis, he explained, would produce constant values for the carbon isotope ratios. Another possibility, the team suggests, is that the carbon came from so-called "chondritic" meteorites, which also have a similar chemical signature.
This theory is appealing as the Hadean is thought to have ended roughly 3.8bn years ago with a period of intense bombardment believed by some to have initiated the emergence of life on Earth.
However, according to Professor Rosing, if the diamonds and zircons are extraterrestrial it undermines every other theory related to the zircons, including the possibility of a cooler, more habitable early Earth.
"If that is the case, then every other argument about these zircons falls apart, he said. "Then we don't know anything."
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
Zircon with diamond inclusion (Martina Menneken)
Some zircon crystals have been dated to 4.4bn years ago
Tiny slivers of diamond forged on an infant Earth may contain the earliest traces of life, a study has shown.
Analysis of the crystals showed they contain a form of carbon often associated with plants and bacteria.
The rare gems were found inside zircon crystals, formed a few hundred million years after the Earth came into being.
Writing in the journal Nature, the researchers caution that their results are not definitive proof of early life but do "not exclude" the possibility.
"We're all a little sceptical," said Dr Martin Whitehouse of the Swedish Museum of Natural History and one of the authors of the paper.
If the carbon was derived from primitive organisms, it would push back the date for life appearing on Earth by around 500 million years, to beyond 4.25 billion years ago. The Earth itself is just 4.6 billion years old.
"When you look at the carbon isotopes, they could be interpreted as biogenic because we know that biologic processes do generate light carbon isotopes. But of course there are other processes that can do that," Dr Whitehouse told BBC News.
"The most common way to form light carbon on the modern Earth is photosynthesis
Alexander Nemchin
Other possibilities include chemical reactions involving carbon oxides or even the material being delivered from space by meteorites.
However, some observers have raised the possibility that the diamonds may be contamination, introduced during polishing of the zircons.
"If you look at the photos that they present, you always see these diamonds sat in cracks and fissures and cavities," Professor Minik Rosing of the University of Copenhagen told BBC News.
If they were original features, he said, you would expect at least some to be embedded within the structure of the crystals.
"There is always fear that they might actually not be primary."
However, Dr Rosing explained, the possibility that the signatures were from early Life was "tantalising".
Time capsules
The tiny zircon crystals - just 0.3mm across - were found in the Jack Hills of Western Australia. They are the tough remnants of ancient rocks that have long since disappeared.
Map of Jack hills (BBC)
"We don't have the rocks. These zircons are just little fragments of something that was broken up, weathered and redeposited as sediments," explained Dr Whitehouse.
Radioactive dating has suggested that some of the crystals formed as far back as 4.4 billion years ago.
Scientists describe this phase in Earth history as the Hadean, and it has long been thought that it would be impossible for life to begin at this time because of the inhospitable conditions on the young planet.
But the Jack Hills zircons have begun to cast doubt on this theory.
Earlier work raised the intriguing possibility that the infant Earth would have been cooler and wetter than previously thought as the crystals show evidence of growing out of a low-temperature magma that had been in contact with water.
The new analysis of the diamond and graphite inclusions in the crystals could lend further weight to this theory.
"I think there is an interesting possibility here," said Dr Whitehouse.
Deep understanding
The scientists analysed 22 graphite and diamond inclusions in 18 zircon crystals.
The results showed that the capsules had unusual levels of a light form, or isotope, of carbon, known as carbon 12.
"The most common way to form light carbon on the modern Earth is photosynthesis," explained Dr Alexander Nemchin of the Curtin University of Technology, Australia, and another author of the paper.
During this process organisms preferentially extract light carbon, leaving heavier forms in the atmosphere.
Rock of the Isua Belt
The Isua Belt may contain chemical traces of ancient life
Oldest evidence of photosynthesis
Diamond record of ancient Earth
"When they die, they preserve that signature," he said.
The results of the team's experiments show that the carbon inclusions have a range of isotopes, which suggested, they said, that the carbon reservoir was "heterogeneous".
This would then have had to be buried deep inside the Earth to generate the extreme pressures required to turn it into diamond.
"If this stuff was life - which then would have presumably formed on the surface - you do then need a process to take it down to something like 150km or 200km," said Dr Whitehouse.
On the modern Earth, crust is recycled at depth in so-called subduction zones, such as those found along the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Here, cool, dense oceanic crust plunges under the buoyant and long-lived continental crust.
Previous work on the diamonds supports the notion that similar processes were occurring on the Hadean Earth.
But not all scientists agree; instead they suggest that the early crust was relatively stable. Either way, Dr Whitehouse does not believe that this rules out a biogenic origin for the carbon.
"All this tells you is that there could have been a process that put things down to 200km," he said. "There may have been other things happening that we don't know about."
Open questions
However, the team readily admit that the conclusion is not definitive.
Currently, what is thought to be the oldest signature of life by some - dated at around 3.7bn years old - was discovered by Professor Rosing in an area of intensely deformed rocks in West Greenland known as the Isua Belt.
That to me is completely the opposite of a biological signature
Minik Rosing
Here, chemical traces again suggest the presence of photosynthetic life forms. But crucially the signature is seen in a complete sequence of rocks rather than isolated crystals.
This gives geologists clues about the environment in which the rocks were laid down and whether or not they could feasibly have contained life.
"The problem with the Jack Hills is that we don't have the rock," admits Dr Whitehouse "The carbon isotopes alone are not a distinct biosignature."
As a result they have suggested other possibilities for the origin of the carbon including inorganic chemical reactions, similar to those that take place in the catalytic converter of a car.
Professor Rosing believes that this is the mostly likely explanation. He points to the range of carbon values that were found in the inclusions.
"That to me is completely the opposite of a biological signature," he said. "That's the signature of some chemistry - a fractionation process or something."
Photosynthesis, he explained, would produce constant values for the carbon isotope ratios. Another possibility, the team suggests, is that the carbon came from so-called "chondritic" meteorites, which also have a similar chemical signature.
This theory is appealing as the Hadean is thought to have ended roughly 3.8bn years ago with a period of intense bombardment believed by some to have initiated the emergence of life on Earth.
However, according to Professor Rosing, if the diamonds and zircons are extraterrestrial it undermines every other theory related to the zircons, including the possibility of a cooler, more habitable early Earth.
"If that is the case, then every other argument about these zircons falls apart, he said. "Then we don't know anything."
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Hadron Collider in Geneva,is no threat to the Earth
Earth Will Survive After All, Physicists Say
Article Tools Sponsored By
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: June 21, 2008
That black hole that was going to eat the Earth? Forget about it, and keep making the mortgage payments — those of you who still have them.
A new particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider scheduled to go into operation this fall outside Geneva, is no threat to the Earth or the universe, according to a new safety review approved Friday by the governing council of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or Cern, which is building the collider.
“There is no basis for any concerns about the consequences of new particles or forms of matter that could possibly be produced by the LHC,” five physicists who comprised the safety assessment group wrote in their report. Whatever the collider will do, they said, Nature has already done many times over.
The report is available at http://lsag.web.cern.ch/lsag/LSAG-Report.pdf.
The physicists, who labored anonymously for the last year and a half, are John Ellis, Michelangelo Mangano, Gian Giudice and Urs Wiedemann, of Cern, and Igor Tkachev, of the Institute for Nuclear Research in Moscow. In a press release, Cern’s director general Robert Aymar said, “With this report, the Laboratory has fulfilled every safety and environmental evaluation necessary to ensure safe operation of this exciting new research facility.”
It is full speed ahead, they say, on the new machine, which is designed to accelerate protons, the building blocks of ordinary matter, to energies of 7 trillion electron volts and then bang them together to produce tiny primordial fireballs, miniature versions of the Big Bang. Physicists will comb the detritus from those fireballs in search of forces and particles and even new laws of nature that might have prevailed during the first trillionth of a second of time.
Some critics have argued, however, that Cern has ignored or downplayed the risk that the collider could produce a black hole that would swallow the Earth, or that it could create some other dangerous particle.
The safety group, however, pointed out that cosmic rays have produced equivalently energetic collisions with the Earth and other objects in the cosmos over and over again. “This means that Nature has already completed about 1031 LHC experimental programs since the beginning of the Universe,” they write. But the stars and galaxies endure.
The new report, which is an update and expansion of a previous 2003 report, pays particular attention to the issue of black holes, which could be produced according to some speculative variations of the already speculative string theory. Could one eat the Earth? These same theories predict that the black holes would immediately disintegrate, the authors say. But if stable black holes could somehow be produced, they would also have been produced by cosmic ray collisions.
The report draws heavily on a dense 96-page analysis by Steven B. Giddings of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Dr. Mangano, which will be available on the physics archive on Monday. In that paper, Dr. Giddings and Dr. Mangano conclude, “Indeed, conservative arguments based on detailed observations and the best-available scientific knowledge, including solid astronomical data, conclude, from multiple perspectives, that there is no risk of any significance whatsoever from such black holes.”
The difference between these two ways of making black holes is that the ones from cosmic rays would be going near the speed of light and would shoot through the Earth with no effect, while collider black holes would be at rest relative to the Earth and could be captured. But if such black holes from cosmic rays existed, the physicists concluded, dense cinders like neutron stars or white dwarfs would capture them and get eaten. But that doesn’t happen; such objects continue to exist.
The safety report was itself reviewed and approved by another panel of scientists outside Cern. And so, after 14 years and $8 billion, the future of physics is almost here.
Cern’s engineers are in the process of cooling the superconducting magnets that power the protons around their 17-mile racetrack down to within 3 degrees Fahrenheit of absolute zero. They are on track, they say to begin circulating protons in the machine in August and to begin colliding them a couple of months later.
Because the engineers have not yet finished “training” the magnets to carry the currents necessary to propel the protons to full energy, the plan is for the colliding protons to have 5 trillion electron volts apiece initially, still five times more energetic than physicists have achieved before.
In the winter, when Cern traditionally shuts down for a period, the magnets will be trained for the full energy. In the spring the collider will start up again with 14-trillion volt collisions. And physicists can finally stop holding their breaths.
An earlier version of this article misstated the number of authors of the report. There are five, not four. Gian Giudice of Cern is also an author.
Article Tools Sponsored By
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: June 21, 2008
That black hole that was going to eat the Earth? Forget about it, and keep making the mortgage payments — those of you who still have them.
A new particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider scheduled to go into operation this fall outside Geneva, is no threat to the Earth or the universe, according to a new safety review approved Friday by the governing council of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or Cern, which is building the collider.
“There is no basis for any concerns about the consequences of new particles or forms of matter that could possibly be produced by the LHC,” five physicists who comprised the safety assessment group wrote in their report. Whatever the collider will do, they said, Nature has already done many times over.
The report is available at http://lsag.web.cern.ch/lsag/LSAG-Report.pdf.
The physicists, who labored anonymously for the last year and a half, are John Ellis, Michelangelo Mangano, Gian Giudice and Urs Wiedemann, of Cern, and Igor Tkachev, of the Institute for Nuclear Research in Moscow. In a press release, Cern’s director general Robert Aymar said, “With this report, the Laboratory has fulfilled every safety and environmental evaluation necessary to ensure safe operation of this exciting new research facility.”
It is full speed ahead, they say, on the new machine, which is designed to accelerate protons, the building blocks of ordinary matter, to energies of 7 trillion electron volts and then bang them together to produce tiny primordial fireballs, miniature versions of the Big Bang. Physicists will comb the detritus from those fireballs in search of forces and particles and even new laws of nature that might have prevailed during the first trillionth of a second of time.
Some critics have argued, however, that Cern has ignored or downplayed the risk that the collider could produce a black hole that would swallow the Earth, or that it could create some other dangerous particle.
The safety group, however, pointed out that cosmic rays have produced equivalently energetic collisions with the Earth and other objects in the cosmos over and over again. “This means that Nature has already completed about 1031 LHC experimental programs since the beginning of the Universe,” they write. But the stars and galaxies endure.
The new report, which is an update and expansion of a previous 2003 report, pays particular attention to the issue of black holes, which could be produced according to some speculative variations of the already speculative string theory. Could one eat the Earth? These same theories predict that the black holes would immediately disintegrate, the authors say. But if stable black holes could somehow be produced, they would also have been produced by cosmic ray collisions.
The report draws heavily on a dense 96-page analysis by Steven B. Giddings of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Dr. Mangano, which will be available on the physics archive on Monday. In that paper, Dr. Giddings and Dr. Mangano conclude, “Indeed, conservative arguments based on detailed observations and the best-available scientific knowledge, including solid astronomical data, conclude, from multiple perspectives, that there is no risk of any significance whatsoever from such black holes.”
The difference between these two ways of making black holes is that the ones from cosmic rays would be going near the speed of light and would shoot through the Earth with no effect, while collider black holes would be at rest relative to the Earth and could be captured. But if such black holes from cosmic rays existed, the physicists concluded, dense cinders like neutron stars or white dwarfs would capture them and get eaten. But that doesn’t happen; such objects continue to exist.
The safety report was itself reviewed and approved by another panel of scientists outside Cern. And so, after 14 years and $8 billion, the future of physics is almost here.
Cern’s engineers are in the process of cooling the superconducting magnets that power the protons around their 17-mile racetrack down to within 3 degrees Fahrenheit of absolute zero. They are on track, they say to begin circulating protons in the machine in August and to begin colliding them a couple of months later.
Because the engineers have not yet finished “training” the magnets to carry the currents necessary to propel the protons to full energy, the plan is for the colliding protons to have 5 trillion electron volts apiece initially, still five times more energetic than physicists have achieved before.
In the winter, when Cern traditionally shuts down for a period, the magnets will be trained for the full energy. In the spring the collider will start up again with 14-trillion volt collisions. And physicists can finally stop holding their breaths.
An earlier version of this article misstated the number of authors of the report. There are five, not four. Gian Giudice of Cern is also an author.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Christian Theologians Prepare for Extraterrestrial Life
Home > Technology & Science
Christian Theologians Prepare for Extraterrestrial Life
By BRANDON KEIM
June 15, 2008
Little green men might shock the secular public. But the Catholic Church would welcome them as brothers.
Alien
(Getty Images)
That's what Vatican chief astronomer and papal science adviser Gabriel Funes explained in a recent article in L'Osservatore Romano, the newsletter of the Vatican Observatory (translated here). His conclusion might surprise nonbelievers. After all, isn't this the same church that imprisoned Galileo for saying that the Earth revolves around the sun? Doesn't the Bible say that God created man -- not little green men -- in his image?
Indeed, many observers assert that aliens would be bad for believers. Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI Research, once wrote that finding intelligent other-worldly life "will be inconsistent with the existence of God or at least organized religions." But such predictions tend to come from outside Christianity. From within, theologians have debated the implications of alien contact for centuries. And if one already believes in angels, no great leap of faith is required to accept the possibility of other extraterrestrial intelligences.
Since God created the universe, theologians say, he would have created aliens, too. And far from being weakened by contact, Christianity would adapt. Its doctrines would be interpreted anew, the aliens greeted with open -- and not necessarily Bible-bearing -- arms.
"The main question is, 'Would religion survive this contact?'" said NASA chief historian Steven J. Dick, author of The Biological Universe. "Religion hasn't gone away after Copernican theory, after Darwin. They've found ways to adapt, and they'll find a way if this happens, too," Dick says.
The central conundrum posed to Christianity by alien contact would involve the Incarnation -- the arrival of Jesus Christ as God's representative on Earth, his crucifixion and the absolution of humanity's sins through his forgiveness.
"It would still be true -- but if there are other races and intelligences, then what is the meaning of this visit to our race at that time?" asked Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno, who in 2005 penned the booklet Intelligent Life in the Universe?
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Christian Theologians Prepare for Extraterrestrial Life
By BRANDON KEIM
June 15, 2008
Little green men might shock the secular public. But the Catholic Church would welcome them as brothers.
Alien
(Getty Images)
That's what Vatican chief astronomer and papal science adviser Gabriel Funes explained in a recent article in L'Osservatore Romano, the newsletter of the Vatican Observatory (translated here). His conclusion might surprise nonbelievers. After all, isn't this the same church that imprisoned Galileo for saying that the Earth revolves around the sun? Doesn't the Bible say that God created man -- not little green men -- in his image?
Indeed, many observers assert that aliens would be bad for believers. Jill Tarter, director of the Center for SETI Research, once wrote that finding intelligent other-worldly life "will be inconsistent with the existence of God or at least organized religions." But such predictions tend to come from outside Christianity. From within, theologians have debated the implications of alien contact for centuries. And if one already believes in angels, no great leap of faith is required to accept the possibility of other extraterrestrial intelligences.
Since God created the universe, theologians say, he would have created aliens, too. And far from being weakened by contact, Christianity would adapt. Its doctrines would be interpreted anew, the aliens greeted with open -- and not necessarily Bible-bearing -- arms.
"The main question is, 'Would religion survive this contact?'" said NASA chief historian Steven J. Dick, author of The Biological Universe. "Religion hasn't gone away after Copernican theory, after Darwin. They've found ways to adapt, and they'll find a way if this happens, too," Dick says.
The central conundrum posed to Christianity by alien contact would involve the Incarnation -- the arrival of Jesus Christ as God's representative on Earth, his crucifixion and the absolution of humanity's sins through his forgiveness.
"It would still be true -- but if there are other races and intelligences, then what is the meaning of this visit to our race at that time?" asked Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno, who in 2005 penned the booklet Intelligent Life in the Universe?
two more pages
NEXT >
Monday, June 9, 2008
Weight of the Milky Way
Discovery of the Week
What the Milky Way Weighs
How much does our galaxy weigh? About half as much as astronomers once thought. Or so says a recent study by an international team of stellar scientists. According to their calculations, the Milky Way's mass is equal to that of about 1 trillion suns. Previous studies had put our galaxy's bulk at roughly 2 trillion suns.
Friends, remember: this bonus issue is just a taste of what our members get every weekday. To feed your brain for life, just click below and . . .
Why the wide discrepancy? Well, you can't just plop a galaxy onto a scale. To estimate the Milky Way's mass, researchers measure the speeds of stars and dwarf galaxies that orbit its main disk in a "galactic halo." But they don't always agree about which stars' speeds to measure--or about other factors that could affect the speeds they see.
As one researcher notes, "the total mass of the galaxy is hard to measure because we're stuck in the middle of it." Still, the new study has at least one big advantage over previous ones. Thanks to better technology, it started from a much larger sample of stars.
Of course, even on the newer, slimmer estimate, our little corner of the universe is mind-bogglingly big. To try to get a sense for just how big it is, let's survey the Milky Way by some other astronomical numbers.
The Milky Way's Astronomical Numbers
100,000 - Diameter of the Milky Way, in light-years. It's also around 1,000 light-years thick, and that's just the main stellar disk. One light-year is a little less than 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km), so we're talking about a very big disk. In fact, if our solar system was just the size of a coin in your pocket, the Milky Way would still be the size of the United States.
26,000 - Distance from our solar system to the Milky Way's center, in light-years. Astronomers think our solar system completes an orbit around the galaxy's center once every 225 to 250 million years. That means it was just one "galactic year" ago when the dinosaurs began to appear on Earth.
2.6 million - Low-end estimate of the number of suns it would take to equal the mass of the supermassive black hole that lurks at our galaxy's center. The sun is roughly 333,000 times more massive than Earth. So, it would take at least 858 billion Earths to equal that black hole's mass. Of course, no one can see the black hole. But astronomers theorize that such massive monsters lurk at the hearts of most galaxies.
200-400 billion - Number of stars in the Milky Way. That number is staggering enough. But consider this. Most astronomers say there are at least 100 billion other galaxies out beyond ours. Big as it is, our little corner of the universe really is just that. The Milky Way is but a drop in the bucket.
--Steve Sampson
What the Milky Way Weighs
How much does our galaxy weigh? About half as much as astronomers once thought. Or so says a recent study by an international team of stellar scientists. According to their calculations, the Milky Way's mass is equal to that of about 1 trillion suns. Previous studies had put our galaxy's bulk at roughly 2 trillion suns.
Friends, remember: this bonus issue is just a taste of what our members get every weekday. To feed your brain for life, just click below and . . .
Why the wide discrepancy? Well, you can't just plop a galaxy onto a scale. To estimate the Milky Way's mass, researchers measure the speeds of stars and dwarf galaxies that orbit its main disk in a "galactic halo." But they don't always agree about which stars' speeds to measure--or about other factors that could affect the speeds they see.
As one researcher notes, "the total mass of the galaxy is hard to measure because we're stuck in the middle of it." Still, the new study has at least one big advantage over previous ones. Thanks to better technology, it started from a much larger sample of stars.
Of course, even on the newer, slimmer estimate, our little corner of the universe is mind-bogglingly big. To try to get a sense for just how big it is, let's survey the Milky Way by some other astronomical numbers.
The Milky Way's Astronomical Numbers
100,000 - Diameter of the Milky Way, in light-years. It's also around 1,000 light-years thick, and that's just the main stellar disk. One light-year is a little less than 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km), so we're talking about a very big disk. In fact, if our solar system was just the size of a coin in your pocket, the Milky Way would still be the size of the United States.
26,000 - Distance from our solar system to the Milky Way's center, in light-years. Astronomers think our solar system completes an orbit around the galaxy's center once every 225 to 250 million years. That means it was just one "galactic year" ago when the dinosaurs began to appear on Earth.
2.6 million - Low-end estimate of the number of suns it would take to equal the mass of the supermassive black hole that lurks at our galaxy's center. The sun is roughly 333,000 times more massive than Earth. So, it would take at least 858 billion Earths to equal that black hole's mass. Of course, no one can see the black hole. But astronomers theorize that such massive monsters lurk at the hearts of most galaxies.
200-400 billion - Number of stars in the Milky Way. That number is staggering enough. But consider this. Most astronomers say there are at least 100 billion other galaxies out beyond ours. Big as it is, our little corner of the universe really is just that. The Milky Way is but a drop in the bucket.
--Steve Sampson
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